Meir Vanunu, brother of Mordechai Vanunu who is awaiting trial in Israel on charges of selling the State’s nuclear secrets to a British newspaper, will ask Britain for political asylum, according to a Jerusalem Post report.
“I have no desire to set foot in Israel for many years,” Meir Vanunu told the Post’s London correspondent.
Meir has attempted to drum up support for his brother abroad. This week, Vanunu said he plans to visit Paris to meet with the “council for the defense” group set up there to work on behalf of his brother. He said he will also visit Italy where a magistrate has launched an investigation into reports that the Mossad illegally spirited Mordechai out of Italy.
Meir claims an attractive female Mossad agent lured his brother from London to Italy, drugged him and brought him against his will to Israel aboard an Israeli vessel.
Mordechai, a former technician at the Dimona nuclear facility, had emigrated to Australia and converted to Christianity when he sold to The Times of London a detailed account (including pictures) of an allegedly secret facility at Dimona for the production of nuclear weapons.
Amnesty International, the international human rights agency, has requested to send an observer to the Vanunu trial but the Attorney General has denied the petition. Vanunu has requested a trial in open court.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
